Maple Leafs’ Week in Review: Week 2

Record at the start of this week: 2-1-0

Record at the end of this week: 2-3-1

Well saying this is a week to forget is an understatement. Leafs fail to win one out of three games and only take one out of nine points, losing to the Rangers in overtime, the Sharks and getting absolutely embarrassed by the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

In the overtime loss against the Rangers, the Leafs probably deserved to win dominating most of the game however ended up falling short in a crazy overtime period. Igor Shesterkin stopped 40 out of 41 shots in that game and too many, the Leafs just got, “goalied” which in my opinion is true to a certain extent but also raises a problem with the Leafs in my opinion. It seems like every game the Leafs play against a goalie who stands on their head as the Leafs pelt them with over 30 shots but how many are high danger shots or chances? When I’m watching the Leafs with the puck a lot of the time they don’t seem that threatening and another thing that drives me nuts when watching the Leafs is that majority of the team refuses to get in front of the net and get tips or redirections. If the Leafs want success in the playoffs or just the regular season they NEED to get more dirty goals, not every goal can be a good passing play or a good move on the goalie. The regular season means nothing to this fanbase unless they don’t make the playoffs, they need to produce in the playoffs and dirty goals are how you do it because the game tightens up in the playoffs, we’ve seen it in all five disappointing first-round exits.

Moving on from the team as a whole we need to look at the defence and the goaltending. Campbell started two out of the three games and Michael Hutchinson started the game against the Sharks and played the third period against the Penguins after Campbell got mercy pulled. Jack was great against the Rangers coming up huge in overtime a few times to keep the game going but eventually, Artemi Panarin beat him to end the game. In the Penguins game, he allowed five goals but I can only say one of the goals was kind of his fault although, much like for the whole game the defence crumbled in front of him. The goal I’m talking about is the Mike Matheson goal where he beat Muzzin out wide and scored on the wrap-around. The Leafs left Campbell out to dry by playing extremely soft defence. The Muzzin-Holl pairing played probably the worst I’ve ever seen them play as a pairing. Hutchinson also allowed two goals in the third period however I’ll give him the pass on this one as it is extremely difficult to come into a game cold.

Hutch also started in the Sharks game and he wasn’t very sharp. In the first goal while Brodie or Spezza can’t let Couture bang that one in, Hutchinson fails to track the puck once it hit his shoulder and because of this he can’t get across his goal-line to cover the post and if he gets across maybe that puck doesn’t even get to Couture because he blocks it or covers it up. The second goal goes right through him from a bad angle which the Leafs need him to stop especially after tying the game under a minute before that goal goes in. The third goal wasn’t his fault as he was screened and the fourth goal was atrocious coverage by the Leafs. While the Leafs weren’t good you kind of want to see Hutchinson save the first two.

Matthews, Marner, and Tavares need to be better. Marner has only produced one assist in six games and it is nowhere near good enough. Tavares is getting better scoring a goal and two assists in six games, while Matthews looks dangerous but hasn’t scored any points. I’ll give Matthews a bit of a pass as he just got back from his wrist injury and looks dangerous, it feels like eventually, he’ll breakthrough.

The way the Leafs performed this past week is not acceptable and it needs to get better with three games this week against Frederik Andersen and the Carolina Hurricanes, Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings. They need at least two wins out of the three games this week. We’ll see how this goes, hopefully, they look like a different team.

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